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serving the Jeep community since 1997
The jeepfan.com 1978 CJ-5 spent a few years in retired status and it was decided to bring it back to light-active duty. This meant some trail rides but nothing extreme, the goal is to prepare the Jeep for some light recreational off road use, preservation is kept in mind. Everyone knows CJ’s aren’t getting more …
You buy new (and larger) tires and possibly wheels for your Jeep and you wonder what’s the proper pressure. It’s often different than the stock tires since the larger tires are likely a different weight rating and constructed a bit different. Finding your proper pressure is done by reading the contact patch. Just how do …
Years ago the jeepfan.com 78 CJ-5’s frame was in bad shape so a donor Jeep was found and a frame swap project was underway. Some frame cleanup and reconditioning made the donor like new. Here’s a pic of the body on a make shift cart waiting for installation on its new frame. This is one of …
After the installation of the new suspension some further sprucing up of the jeepfan.com 1978 CJ-5 was in order. The Mickey Thomson MTZ tires on the Classic II wheels served the Jeep well from both a performance and appearance perspective but a look change just felt needed. US Mags makes many styles of wheels but …
The final piece to the Old Man Emu suspension install on our 78 CJ-5 is the addition of the Crabtree Tool & Die YJ style 4″ shackles on both the front and rear of the CJ. These shackles are real nice and are super heavy duty. Thick steel plates with a center bolt and grease-able spring …
Mike is the founder of jeepfan.com. A lifelong “Jeepfan” playing around, modifying, building, and everything else with Jeeps for decades. Now on Jeep number 9 (some CJ’s, JK and YJ Wranglers, Cherokee, and Liberty and about 5 CJ’s for parts) the saga continues.
This 1978 CJ-5 has been in our stable since 1997 and as soon as we had our hands on it all kinds of ideas filled our heads. The Jeep was essentially a restored stock Jeep with an AMC V8 and a fiberglass body. It’s hard to find a more perfect Jeep to start a project. …
If you have a leaf sprung Jeep and ever used degree shims to adjust your axles have probably used aluminum shims (or wedges). If you have used the aluminum ones you probably have seen what they look like over time and have listened to them squeak, creak, and clunk.
For 11 years this 78 CJ-5 ran a Holley 2bbl Pro-Jection throttle body fuel injection system. The system was rather simple and worked well. The trail advantages of the TBI were obvious on hills and bounces, the disadvantages were the computer controls and unpredictable failures.
An in depth look at two different generation Jeeps, we put them side by side and see what’s what. In many places around this site we note the technical specs for these two model Jeeps so we aren’t going into that here. See the Jeep Spotters Guide for model specifics. We wanted to note the …
